It is
not suggested that these were their actual ancestors, but that
they came from the same early amphibian root.
We find both these groups, in patriarchal forms, in Europe, North
America, and South Africa during the Permian period. They are
usually moderate in size, but in places they seem to have found
good conditions and prospered. A few years ago a Permian bed in
Russia yielded a most interesting series of remains of Synapsid
reptiles. Some of them were large vegetarian animals, more than
twelve feet in length; others were carnivores with very powerful
heads and teeth as formidable as those of the tiger. Another
branch of the same order lived on the southern continent,
Gondwana Land, and has left numerous remains in South Africa. We
shall see that they are connected by many authorities with the
origin of the mammals.* The other branch, the Diapsids, are
represented to-day by the curiously primitive lizard of New
Zealand, the tuatara (Sphenodon, or Hatteria), of which I have
seen specimens, nearly two feet in length, that one did not care
to approach too closely. The Diapsids are chiefly interesting,
however, as the reputed ancestOrs of the colossal reptiles of the
Jurassic age and the birds.
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